My friend Gina sent this to me. I think it's very fitting :)

You know you're from Chicago when...
1. The "living room" is called the "front room" (pronounced front-troom).
2. You don't pronounce the "s" at the end of Illinois. You become irate at people who do.
3. You measure distance in minutes, especially from the city, and you swear that everything is pretty much 15 minutes away.
4. You have no trouble spelling or prounouncing "Des Plaines".
5. Your school classes were cancelled due to cold.
6. Your school classes were cancelled due to heat.
7. You've ever had to switch from Heat to A/C in the same day.
8. Stores don't have sacks, they have bags.
9. You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition: Where's my coat at? or If you go to the mall I want to go with.
10. Your idea of a good tenderloin is when the meat is twice as big as the bun, "everything" is on it, and a slice of dill pickle is on the side.
11. You carry jumper cables in your car.
12. You drink "pop"
13. You understand that I-290, I-90, I-94, and I-294 are all different roads.
14. You know the names of the interstates: Stevenson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Dan Ryan, Edens. But you call the interstates expressways.
15. You refer to anything south of I-80 as "Southern Illinois".
16. You refer to lake Michigan as "the Lake".
17. You refer to Chicago as "The City".
18. The "Super Bowl" refers to one specific game in a series of 36 played in January of 1986.
19. No matter where you are, when you hear the word "downtown" you immediately assume they're talking about Downtown Chicago.
20. You have two favorite football teams: the Bears and anyone who beats the Packers.
21. You buy "the Trib".
22. You think 35 degrees is great weather to wash your car.
23. You know what goes on a Chicago style hot dog.
24. You know what Chicago style Pizza REALLY is.
25. You know why they call Chicago the "windy city".
26. You understand what "Lake effect" means.
27. You know the difference between Amtrak and Metra, and know which station they end up at.
28. You have ridden the "L".
29. You can distinguish between the following area codes: 847, 630, 773, 708, 312, and 815.
30. You have at some time in your life, used your furniture to guard your parking spot in winter (CHICAGO CLASSIC).
31. You respond to the question "where are you from?" with a side: West Side, North Side, South Side.
32. You know the number to "Empire Carpets".

I had a hard time sleeping last night. At first it was great. It was a beautiful out. I had my bedroom window open and there was a nice breeze, so it felt really nice in my room. All of a sudden I was awakened by the sound of yelling. I should say that next to my apartment building is a little park-like green space with some grass, trees, and benches. Many people sit out there all times of the day. My bedroom window overlooks this green space. I noticed before I went to bed that there was a group of guys sitting out there. This was around 10:30. I woke up well after midnight, but I don't remember what time. These same guys were yelling really loudly. At least 2 of them were having some sort of arguement, cursing and everything, while I was trying to sleep. I saw them out the window. It looked like one guy was trying to situate himself between 2 of the other guys, but I saw no physical fighting. I went back to bed and tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. I was about to call the police when all the yelling stopped. I waited a few minutes and looked out the window. They were gone. I fell back to sleep. Then they woke me up again! They had come back I guess. It was all very irritating.

Finally, after I managed to fall back to sleep and the loud boys were gone for good, it started to rain. It was raining into my room so I had to close the window. Then I had a hard time falling back to sleep because it was hot.

Ugh!

I had a horrible dream last night. I worked as a nanny/housekeeper sort of thing for a friend of mine who has a daughter who is like 9 or 10. It was my responsibility to make sure she got to school on time and stuff like that. So one day, as I was taking her and one of her friends to school, she asked if she could drive. For some odd reason I let her. She drove very well, like she had been driving for years. As we came over a bridge (for those who might be familiar with where I grew up, it's the bridge over the Des Plaines River, going from Riverside into Lyons) there were about 10 squad cars blocking the road. There was nowhere for us to go except into the roadblock. The young girl stopped the car and a policeman came over. I knew him (I don't know him in real life but in the dream I did). He asked why I let a young girl like that drive. I muttered some lame excuse. He said he would not give me a ticket if I helped the police officers out. They were waiting to catch a criminal. They knew he was going to come by soon. (I think I have been watching too much Cowboy Bebop). Anyway, this criminal guy had a girl (I don't remember if it was his wife, daughter, girlfriend, whatever) who had died, and he was keeping the body as if it was still alive. Think of Norman Bates and his mom. He also was bombing buildings. He has managed to elude police up to this point. He always managed to get away whenever officers came near. The person who was supposed to approach the man on this day was an undercover officer, who for some reason couldn't do it. So they asked me. I just told the officer to give me the ticket, I didn't want any part of this. But somehow he convinced me.

The criminal guy was coming. He looked exactly like the guy who raped Donna on 90210. I approached him. I did it casually. I don't remember how exactly I approached him, but at some point I was holding a picture that had him and a family, and I was telling him what a beautiful family was in the picture. I was totally scared. Then the cops started coming towards us and the guy started going nuts. I started running away down the street since I didn't know what was going to happen and I was scared. Then I heard a big boom and saw gravel flying. I ducked against the wall of a restaurnat (PJ Klem's for those who are wondering). Evidently the guy had explosives hidden under his clothing. He detonated himself when the police touched him. He was killed, along with several police officers. I had some scratches and bruising from debris that hit me, but I was okay. I woke up a bit after that, after the story hit the papers and no one believed I was the person who approached him since they didn't mention me in the article.

I had a hard time falling back to sleep after that.

There is a mouse in my apartment. It has been there for probably over a month now. This mouse doesn't bother me as much as the mouse I had when I was living in a studio apartment. For one thing, this mouse stays close to the wall, behind the radiator, television, stereo, and bookcase. The other mouse was in my kitchen, which was much more disturbing. Also, I haven't seen this mouse very much. A couple of weeks ago my boyfriend put out a trap to try to catch the mouse. He placed it behind the television as the mouse tends to be there a lot. Since he put the trap out I have only seen the mouse once, and that was last night. So this morning I went and checked the trap to see if the mouse had been caught. Not only had the mouse not been caught, but the cheese on the trap was gone! How did the mouse get the cheese off the trap without setting it off? I was kind of mad at first, but now I'm almost proud of the mouse! How'd he do that? It reminds me of when I was working at a sporting goods store where a treadmill had been stolen. How does one steal a treadmill? I mean, if you can pull something like that off, you almost deserve it!